The council voted 4-1 last week to scrap the city's three-man police department and its municipal court system in order to save about $360,000 a year. The police department will be completely dismantled by the end of the month.

Open police cases will be transferred to the Jackson County Sheriff's Office and all court cases that are not resolved will be handled in Jackson County State Court.

"We could no longer afford to fund public service as a duplicate service," said Mayor Erma Denney, who took office last month. "Every property owner in Hoschton has already been paying for public safety through the sheriff's office and always has been."

Hoschton leaders have struggled for more than a year to balance residents' desire for autonomous city services with vehement opposition to property taxes, which Hoschton property owners have not had to pay for more than 30 years.

The previous council shrank the department from seven officers to four between 2008 and late 2009.

Mish observes......Layoffs in police and fire have barely begun to start.

Few Toledo residents say they're optimistic the city will remain safe in the wake of layoffs that have put 75 police officers out of work.

More than 20 percent of Manteca's police force could soon be forced off the streets due to budget cuts

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg acknowledged that for the first time in nearly 30 years the city might have to lay off police officers to help balance the budget.

Taking one of the most drastic steps yet in their efforts to solve Nassau County's fiscal crisis, county officials said today that they would push to lay off 207 police officers to help close a budget gap.

Major changes are coming to the Peoria Police Department now that there will be 40 less positions in 2010.

IT IS NOT THE END OF THE WORLD.....SIMPLY THE END OF A WORLD AS YOU KNOW IT.....

We are simply running out of money due to zombulation policies.......unless we restructure soon......very few will have jobs.....including fire and safety officers around the nation.

What good is wealth if there is no safety in the society???????????????????? And if there is no safety, how much do you think your house is worth in such an environment?????????

But if that is the case.....what is your view on bankers, lawyers, retailers, insurance employees, health care workers (once 1% of GDP around 1950 and now almost 20%), media employees, etc..............................................................

My guess is we have about 50% too many non productive workers in our self serving consumer based leveraged consumer economy......

Creates an interesting situation when everyone is not much more than a monkey trying to sell houses we don't need.

Well I think you know me well enough. We both understand that there is a difference between productive and unproductive work. And I think there are levels in between.

When we look at our supposed 'market economy' there is a lot of unproductive work getting squeezed out, and in the long run, that is a good thing. The problem comes, as you know, when the Nanny State steps in and tries to keep everyone working in inefficient sectors through bailouts, monetary quackery, and regulation.

But on the civil service side of the house, I don't think I've ever met one who was worth their salary (except for the guy cleaning toilets I suppose - and hey, at least he actually got the toilets clean.) I'm always thrilled to see them have to find a real job. But I especially enjoy it in a competitive labor market like we have today.

Now if we can just find a way to get all those repugnant, overpaid GS-13's and above out of their cushy tax feeding jobs and into the real labor pool, that would be a lot of fun :)

"Now if we can just find a way to get all those repugnant, overpaid GS-13's and above out of their cushy tax feeding jobs and into the real labor pool, that would be a lot of fun :)"

What I find repugnant is someone who would find joy in anyone losing their job. But then maybe living in Qatar has warped your ability to feel empathy for the people and their families in the United States.

On the contrary, living overseas has helped me to see the big picture and elevated my understanding of how societies work... and what doesn't work. Bureaucracy doesn't work. If every civil service employee in America (and Qatar, and anywhere for that matter) was unceremoniously dumped out on the street, we would all be far better off economically. Oh, and a whole lot safer too.

Alstry, we can never have enough police officers. They are already spread too thin and don't have time to process the large number of cases they already have. With lenient judges and courts sending criminals back on the streets and with a high case of recidivism, police officers are necessary. I have seen the results of police officer layoffs here in the Midwest--high crime and Dunkin' Donut stores going out of business.

The people need to be protected, so good police officers should never be layed off, no matter how bad the economy is. Police officers and firemen are too valuable to be lost to budget cuts.

America has 22,000,000 workers directly employed by government......and countless millions working for contractors and health care subsidized by government........

If we got rid of 15,000,000 of the combined direct and indirect workforce.......unemployment would double immediately(until we removed those people from the labor force).......and so would tax receipts to government.....and so would sales to our economy.

I am not arguing with your point.....simply pointing out that when you reduce credit and raise borrowing rates to a credit dependent econonmy, while pay savers nothing.....it is mathematically impossible to have a recovery as being represented by many.....and everytime you have a net reduction in workforce in a service economy......the economy is contracting.

There are good cops and bad cops.....officers themselves will admit to that.....and the bad ones taint the entire force.

Many cops are overburdened right now....and the problem is exacerbated with the release of many mentally ill patients from current living environments due to budget cutbacks.

Most Americans have no clue about the stress currently being faced by officers. The irony is the most dangerous call an officer responds to is a domestic situation.....and those situations are becoming more volitile as the economy heads South.

No one knows where this is going....the point of this blog was to simply point out the delta between bonusing insolvent bankers billions and firing cops by the thousands.

If you were to compare how much it costs people to pay tickets for victimless crimes, and how much cheaper it would be for society on the whole, it more than make up for the amount of crime that would occur because of less police. In the last 15 years, the number of police has increased 3-4 times, they only serve to hurt individuals personal economic situations, and crime has stayed the same. The only thing increasing is the amount of money people have to pay for the service of being ticketed for no good reason.

Want to improve the economy? keep paying the cops, but tell them not to go to work! That way, they only get our money once! I know we all have to make a living, but lets be creative enough so that we don't need to be parasitic.

However, much of a officers value is deterrence.....and if those that might think twice due to fear of getting caught lose concern for apprehension, you will see crime rates skyrocket.

You will find that I am more of a liberatarian than anything else at this point......and as far as speeding tickets and other traffic violations, moderation and perspective controls or else we would have chaos on the roads......but I have to agree with you as of recent that traffic violations are becoming more of a source of revenue than proper control of laws.

Slow down a little. This is a three-person police department in a small town that does not have enough money to pay a police department. In most states, if a town does not have a police department, the sheriff's department is in control. In fact, in most of these small towns, the sheriff's department already shares patrol responsibility.

Abolishing a duplication of services is neither the end of the world nor the beginning of major governmental reorganization/reform.

If you reduce the direct govt work force by 10,000,000 at +/- $75K per position (wage & benefits) that is $750,000,000,000.

If they are in 28% income tax bracket after deductions, they probably pay $5,000.00 each income tax. 10,000,000 x $5,000 = $50,000,000,000.

Tax receipts would go down by $50B, but govt expenditure would go down by $750B.

Many of these people might go on to start their own business. Many could work elsewhere. Many would be unemployed for a long while. Many services could be privatized creating jobs for the former govt employees (albeit less lucrative).

My guess is that they pay a lot more than $5,000. Just FICA would be a lot more than $5,000 assuming an employer match. Than if you factor State and Federal, we are probably looking closer to $15,000 to $20,000 of total tax per person.

And then we would have about 10,000,000 more uninsured families creating an additional burden on an already burdened health care system.....

You are now beginning to see that we face a systematic crisis.....one unlike anything we have seen before.

But your point is well made.....going forward, both in government and private sector, expect some really BIG layoffs and cutbacks in the very near future.

Jan. 24 (Bloomberg) -- Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the world’s largest retailer, will eliminate about 11,200 jobs at its Sam’s Club membership warehouse clubs as it hires an outside company to demonstrate products.

About 10,000 demonstration employees, most part-time, will lose their jobs when Shopper Events takes over sampling, Sam’s Club Chief Executive Officer Brian Cornell told employees today in a memo. The company also is cutting about 1,200 membership recruiting jobs, or about two in each of the club’s U.S. stores.

Sam’s Club is working with Shopper Events to develop in- store demonstrations, such as food sampling, currently performed by Sam’s employees, Cornell said. The effort is aimed at improving demonstrations in the areas of food and beverages, personal wellness and electronics, according to the memo.

These cuts are separate from Walmart’s announcement on Jan. 11 that it will close 10 Sam’s Club locations and eliminate about 1,500 jobs

I am concerned though about Firefighters. You need some full time Firefighters. What is in severe decline are volunteer Firefighting stations. Where you have one or two full timers and the rest are volunteers that do three or four day shifts and their full time jobs should be accomodating to volunteers so they can perform that vital service.

It's firefighters too....thousands and thousands of firefighters are losing jobs and stations shutting down around the nation. It will make response times only longer....not the end of the world, just a lot more crispy houses and buildings.....and possibly people as well.

It is simply that America is shutting down as Benny the B tells you there is a recovery.....and based on your response, you are still not fully aware of it yet.

One thing that I believe would really help this country, and I've been thinking about this for years, is it should be required by every citizen when they turn 18 that they work for some government agency for 1 or 2 years to be completed within maybe a 5 year timeframe. Any government job from the military, park service, forestry service, customs, agriculture, even jobs at State and local levels. Some sort of system like that would provide direction for some people and would help educate everyone about their own government.

Not to mention the productivity that it would produce to stimulate our country and economy.